Mentoring students for success

Engaging with junior and senior students in the major is also an opportunity for first-year and sophomore students to learn more about the possibilities in biomedical engineering.

Led by biomedical engineering junior Louis Moon in the 2022–23 academic year, the BMES mentorship program is another community-building opportunity students can participate in.

“I think mentorship is important because it’s almost impossible to know what you’re getting into when you start your degree,” Moon says. “It’s great to have someone who has gone through your academic path give you some guidance or an idea of that path.”

Just as D’Saachs was challenged with rebuilding a sense of community coming out of the pandemic, Moon also worked to bring students together again with in-person mentorship program meetings alongside virtual ones.

He also added a new lab shadowing component to the mentorship program. This opportunity breaks down time and access barriers to allow students to learn what it's like to work in a research lab from their peers and see experiments in action.

Building bigger and better communities in the new academic year

Under Naina Misra, a biomedical engineering junior who serves as the student organization’s president for the 2023–24 academic year, the BMES leadership team plans to continue expanding what the organization offers Fulton Schools students.

Camryn Sheen, a biomedical engineering sophomore taking over the peer engagement director role this year, says BMES members can look forward to more of the engagement events D’Saachs helped develop, such as game nights and art activities with Bartelle. Sheen also plans to create new events to support peer engagement, such as biomedical engineering trivia nights and viewing parties for documentaries related to the major, such as "The Bleeding Edge."

Cameron Knight, a biomedical engineering sophomore and the new mentorship director, continues to expand upon activities like lab shadowing, which was a big success, and wants to enable more students to take part.

Knight also plans to start a journal-sharing activity in which postgraduates share their biomedical engineering journeys to help current students understand how they can use their degrees after graduation.

Misra notes other exciting events and opportunities in the works for the year, including helping undergraduate students learn about advanced degree and research pathways from current graduate students and other opportunities for all students to learn about entrepreneurship and founding new ventures in Arizona. She says BMES is also planning tours at biomedical research organizations such as Medtronic and the Translational Genomics Research Institute, or TGen, and forming a new Biomedical Engineering Design Team to compete in the Medtronic/BMES Student Design Competition at the national BMES Annual Meeting in 2024.

Misra, Sheen and Knight encourage all biomedical engineering students to join BMES, where they can find new friends and opportunities to network and be welcomed into a supportive, fun community.

“BMES is an organization that values community, inclusivity and involvement,” Misra says. “It is an amazing way for biomedical engineering students to learn about their field, discover their interests and gain an idea of their future impact. BMES was built by those interested in biomedical engineering for those interested in biomedical engineering, and I encourage everyone who wants to learn more and become involved to join.”

Interested in joining the Biomedical Engineering Society chapter at ASU? Sign up for the BMES mailing list for more information, follow them on Instagram at @bmes.asu for the latest updates, and find more ways to get involved on the organization’s Linktree.

Monique Clement

Lead communications specialist, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-1958